PIC Microcontroller
PIC – “Peripheral Interface Controller”
Made by Microchip Technology
Most popular by industry developers
Low cost
Availability
Extensive application notes
Serial programming
8-bit PIC families
The 8-bit family of RISC Havard-architecture microcontrollers are
based upon four different processor architectures with a common
core set of assembler instructions which are upwards compatible
across the sub-families.
The four sub-families are officially named:
Base-Line -
Mid-Range -
Enhanced Mid-Range -
High-End -
Base-Line - Devices based upon a processor core using a 12-bit
instruction set.
Microcontrollers with the prefix PIC10, PIC12 or PIC16 could be
base-line products.
Mid-Range - Devices based upon a processor core using a 14-bit
instruction set.
Microcontrollers with the prefix PIC12 or PIC16 could be mid-
range products.
The rfPIC12 devices (with integrated radio transmitter) also belong
to this family.
Enhanced Mid-Range - Devices based upon a processor core using a
14-bit instruction set with extended instruction set, larger memory
addressing and other improvements compared to mid-range
products.
Microcontrollers with the prefix PIC12F1 and PIC16F1 are
extended mid-range products.
High-End - Devices based upon a processing core using a 16-bit
instruction set, some of which may also have a high-level
programming language optimized extended instruction set and data-
memory addressing.
Microcontrollers with the prefix PIC18 will be a high-end product.
PIC 18F features
8 bit, Low cost, low power consumption
Speed: Harvard Architecture, RISC architecture, 1 instruction cycle = 4
clock cycles.
Instruction set simplicity: The instruction set consists of just 37
instructions
Power-on-reset
Brown-out-reset : when the power supply goes below a specified
voltage (say 4V), it causes PIC to reset; hence malfunction is avoided.
PIC 18F features
A watch dog timer (user programmable) resets the processor if the
software/program ever malfunctions and deviates from its normal
operation.
Wide availability with high clock speed
Low power crystal
Mid range crystal
High range crystal
RC oscillator (low cost).
PIC 18F features
Programmable timers.
On-chip ADC.
Up to 12 independent interrupt sources.
Powerful output pin control (25 mA (max.) current sourcing
capability per pin.)
EPROM/ROM/Flash memory option.
PIC supports 12 independent interrupt sources.
Capture/Compare/PWM (CCP)
10bit PWM width within 8 bit PWM period
I/O port
Free assembler and simulator support from Microchip
PIC18F – MCU and Memory
16 bit
2 MB
221
8 bit
4 KB
212
PIC18F Memory
Program Memory: 32 K (215)
Address range: 000000 to 007FFFH
16-bit registers
Data Memory: 4 K (212)
Address range: 000 to FFFH
8-bit registers
Data EEPROM
Not part of the data memory space
Addressed through special function registers
Microprocessor Unit
Registers
Bank Select Register (BSR)
4-bit register used in direct
addressing the data memory
File Select Registers (FSRs)
16-bit registers used as memory
pointers in indirect addressing data
memory
Program Counter (PC)
21-bit register that holds the
program memory address while
executing programs
Microprocessor Unit
Control unit
Provides timing and control signals to various
Read and Write operations
PIC18F - Address Buses
Address bus
21-bit address bus for program
memory addressing capacity:
(221) = 2 MB of memory.
12-bit address bus for data
memory
addressing capacity: (212) = 4 KB
of memory
Data Bus and Control Signals
Data bus
16-bit instruction/data
bus for program memory
8-bit data bus for data
memory
Control signals
Read and Write
PIC18FMemory
Program memory with Data memory with
addresses (Flash) addresses
Also called Data
Register or File
Register
FFF=212=16x256=4096=4K
PIC18F – Data Memory with Access Banks
Three ways to access data registers:
Direct using Bank Select Registers (BSR)
Bank address (4-bit) + Instruction (8-bit)
Indirect using File Select Registers (FSR)
FSR contains the address of the data register
Hence, MPU uses FSR
Access Bank using General Purpose Registers
(GPR)
Data Memory 000h
Access RAM
07Fh
Organization 080h
0FFh
Bank 0 GPR
100h
Bank 1
GPR
FFF=212=16x256=4096=4K 1FFh
200h
Bank 2
Data Memory up to 4k bytes GPR Access Bank
2FFh
Data register map - with 12-bit Access RAM (GPR)
00h
7Fh
address bus 000-FFF
80h
Access SFR
Divided into 256-byte banks D00h FFh
Bank 13
There are total of F banks GPR
256 Bytes
DFFh
Half of bank 0 and half of E00h GPR=General Purpose Reg.
bank 15 form a virtual bank Bank 14 SFR=Special Function Reg.
GPR
that is accessible no matter EFFh
which bank is selected F00h
Bank 15 GPR
F7Fh
F80h
FFFh Access SFR
PIC18F I/O Ports
Five I/O ports
PORT A through PORT E
Most I/O pins are multiplexed
Generally have eight I/O pins with
a few exceptions
Addresses already assigned to
these ports in the design stage
Each port is identified by its
assigned Special Function
Registers (SFR)
PORTA (address of F80)
PORTB (address of F81)
these are part of data memory or
register file
TRISB must be set to specify signal direction of
PORT B.
Support Devices
Support Devices
Timers
A value is loaded in the register and continue changing at every clock
cycle – time can be calculated
Can count on rising or falling edge
There are several timers: 8-bit, 16-bit
Controlled by SFR
Master Synchronous Serial Port (MSSP)
Serial interface supporting RS232
Addressable USART
Another serial data communication
A/D converter
Parallel Slave Port (PSP)
Capture, Compare and PWM (CCP Module)
PIC18F Special Features
Sleep mode
Power-down mode
Watchdog timer (WDT)
Able to reset the processor if the program is caught in
unknown state (e.g., infinite loop)
Code protection
EEPROM can be protected through SFR
In-circuit serial programming
In-circuit debugger
